All hating together

The Times today published a heartwarming photo of numerous Israeli religious leaders -- Islamic, Catholic, Armenian, Ashkenazi, and Sepphardic -- coming together in opposition to a common foe: gay rights. Nothing triumphs over prejudice quite like prejudice. Anti-semitism, one of society's traditional glues, just won't work there for some reason.

I found myself driving to work singing along with the Smiths again, and my mind drifted off to Tony Thomas, a tall, well-dressed black guy who hauled himself from the under-manicured streets of East Chicago, Indiana to Yale Law School in the eighties. Between a multi-year research project on House Music, a serious appetite for tha kine, and dying at an excruciatingly young age of AIDS, he never quite made the mark that he might have. On his chest of drawers he had a picture of himself at his high school prom, in a colored tux with a good sized fro and a female date. It must not have been fun to be gay at an i high school. I miss the guy.